My trip to Ground Zero
Saturday, September  27, 2003

The last time I visited Ground Zero was over a year and a half ago and the visit lasted only a few minutes.  I never wanted to stay around too long.  Recently, I became very interested in seeing not only Ground Zero but I was also curious to find out what happened to the shops, parks, statues surrounding the World Trade Center which I became familiar friends during my frequent business trips to NYC. 

I needed to remember for myself and put meaning behind what I experienced.

I never thought I would feel such a strong sense of attachment to buildings and structures but they were not just buildings and structures.  There were people, personalities and culture behind them which made my hectic business trips to NYC more enjoyable.
My memories of World Trade Center is acute but fragmented. Some of it is captured in my mind with startling clarity, some in sound or smell or bits of interactions with other people. Other pieces have been deposited and locked in my head, waiting to resurface anytime I still have the hotel key from the Marriott Hotel at 3 World Trade Center and store receipts from the World Trade Center shops. I also have my mental image of the wonderful view looking out at the River, the grand WTC plaza, the incredible rush of humanity endlessly pushing through wide basement corridors and the gleaming Twin Towers, so tall they seemed to reach to sky. I remember the bronze statue that fiercely stayed put on Liberty Park. This memory now bears no resemblance to what was left after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. It is changed forever.

• The bronze statue of the businessman in Liberty Park left a lasting impression on me.  Doublecheck is the name of the statue of the businessman sitting on the bench with his briefcase opened.  The statue blended so well with the people in lower Manhattan.  He represented just one of the thousands of people dashing to work in NYC.  For me, it symbolized a serenity that can be lost when you stay in NYC too long.  For anyone’s whose worked in NY for awhile, it’s easy to become completely submerged in the crowd of people moving in and out each day to their busy jobs.  The statue was always there as I walked from the World Trade Center along Liberty Street, to Broadway towards Wall Street to the Data Center on Broad Street.  With a heavy laptop in hand along with a mental outline of the day’s agenda always,  I walked to Broad Street immersed in my thoughts.  When I passed the bronze statue, it always made me pause, even for a brief second as a reminder to slow down.   The images of Doublecheck pre-Sept 11 and post-Sept 11 always haunted me. 
• I wondered about Pronto Pizza across the street from the Marriott.  I used to see it all the time and thought it was a very catchy name.  Not being a pizza fan,  I never ate there.   However, my husband would sometimes sneak in there for lunch while I was at work. 
• I wondered about Liberty Gourmet, the deli/store across from the Marriott, to the right of Pronto Pizza where I often frequented after a long day’s work.  I used to dash into Liberty Gourmet during all sorts of hours 8pm, 10PM or later to get my dose of sushi, fruit, fresh-squeezed OJ or salad.  I believed they opened all night.  Liberty Gourmet saved me from having to eat really junk food when it got too late.  Downtown is crowded and busy during the day but when the sun goes down, it turns into a ghost town and not many places are opened near the Trade Center.  There’s a Thai restaurant, pizzerias, Burger King and there was a Japanese restaurant in the World Trade Center shopping plaza.
• Whenever I had a few minutes to spare, I would watch the chess games in Liberty Park.  I am an amateur chess player and watching those guys play chess astonished me.  I was amazed at not only the skill that these games whof these players but was amazed at the speed at which the games were played.

The 4 pictures below represents Liberty Street across from the World Trade Center.  I try to create a panoramic view of the street by taking 4 different pictures and putting them together so I could get a view of the entire street.  I wanted to remember this street.

I think the window under the “retail space available” red banner (3^rd pic) is where Liberty Gourmet used to be. In the 2^nd picture, there are 2 entrances with glass doors and white trimmings.  that was Pronto Pizza

I walked around the area, bought 2 books. I met a man named Harry Rowland. It was very nice what he was doing. He was educating the visitors on the World Trade Center. Aside from the Twin Towers, the complext encompassed many more buildings, including hundreds of shops in the concourse. I looked at all the vendors on Liberty Street, in front of the stores where Liberty Gourmet, Pronto Pizza, LemonGrass Grill used to be.  Now they are empty buildings. 

I retraced my escape path from the MArriott, down West Street to the Bowling Green Train Station in Battery Park